E.T., Hold Please: SETI Halts Alien Search Due to Cutbacks

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If alien civilizations have been trying to contact us for the
last week and a half, their calls may have fallen on deaf ears.

Budget cuts have forced the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence) Institute -- a nonprofit research organization
based in Mountain View, Calif. -- to shut down one of its chief
alien-hunting tools for a spell. [ 5
Bold Claims of Alien Life ]

SETI's Allen Telescope Array, a set of 42 radio telescopes in
northern California that scan the skies for potential alien radio
signals, has been shut down since April 15, officials said.

"Effective this week, the ATA has been placed into hibernation
due to funding shortfalls for operations of the Hat Creek Radio
Observatory (HCRO) where the ATA is located," SETI CEO Tom
Pierson wrote in a letter to potential donors Friday (April 22).
"Hibernation means that, starting this week, the equipment is
unavailable for normal observations and is being maintained in a
safe state by a significantly reduced staff."

Funds have dried up

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen initially provided $25 million
for the ATA, which began operations in 2007. Since then, the
array has been funded by SETI, the National Science Foundation,
the University of California, Berkeley, and a variety of
corporate and individual donors.

But the recent financial crisis and ensuing recession have caused
much of that funding to dry up, Pierson told the donors. The
National Science Foundation's contributions have been slashed by
90 percent, for example, and California's well-publicized budget
woes have severely reduced the amount of state funds available to
the ATA. [ 10
Alien Encounters Debunked ]

The ATA network -- located about 300 miles (482 kilometers) north
of San Francisco -- is supposed to eventually expand to 350
different instruments. But the budget problems are throwing a
wrench into those plans as well, SETI and UC-Berkeley researcher
Franck
Marchis wrote in a blog post Friday.

Getting the search back up and running

SETI is hoping to rustle up some more money to get the ATA
running again. For example, the institute has been pursuing a
possible collaboration with the United States military since
2009.

The U.S. Air Force has expressed interest in using the telescope
array to track the thousands of bits of space debris whizzing
around Earth, Marchis wrote. This
space junk poses a serious threat to spacecraft, satellites
and astronauts on orbit.

"We are continuing discussions with the USAF and remain hopeful
that this effort will help provide future operating funds,"
Pierson wrote in the letter. "At the same time, we must strive to
find other sources of funding to supplement operations costs and,
very importantly, to support SETI science observations."

Even if the Air Force doesn't sign on, all is not lost for the
ATA, officials said. Scanning the skies for possible alien
signals isn't terribly expensive work, especially since the
infrastructure and equipment are already there.

According to Pierson's letter, it costs about $1.5 million per
year to operate the ATA, and an additional $1 million per year to
fund associated SETI science efforts -- such as using the
telescope network to scan for signals coming from the
1,235 potential alien planets discovered to date by NASA's
Kepler space observatory.

"One motivated donor could conceivably put the whole machinery of
the search back in gear!" SETI astronomer Seth Shostak told
SPACE.com in an email interview.